Using & Teaching Educational Technology
Facebook face-off
By Terry Freedman
Tue, 24 Jul 2007, 22:33

This video, which I came across accidentally on YouTube, raises some interesting issues I think. Watch it, and then consider the questions which follow... :-)

This video was meant to be humorous, obviously (it comes from a site called College Humor), but like all good humour there's a serious side to it too. For me, these are the issues raised in the video that might provide fertile ground for discussion with students:

1. From a psychological point of view, the approach taken by the main character is completely wrong. He tries to outdo his rival in love by becoming not merely like him, but actually becoming him. According to Stephen Potter, that is completely the opposite of what one should do, as I've explained in my Technology & Learning blog article.

2. He decides to become like him via Facebook, and to damage his reputation in the process. Is this actually any different, in principle, to what some nasty people have done since time immemorial?

3. You could use this as an interesting launching point for a discussion of identity theft. The scenario depicted in the video is far-fetched, but the basic activity shown is identity theft.

4. Look at how the "hero" gets into his rival's Facebook account. Not by hacking, but by entering the correct name and password. Read any book about hacking and you will discover that the single biggest threat to security is people's carelessness when it comes to protecting their login details. I quite often hear, when I visit schools, that the kids are getting access to files they shouldn't, simply because their teachers log on to the network and then leave themselves logged on all day, including periods when their computer is left unattended. What the video illustrates is a possible outcome if the wrong kind of person gets into your area -- so maybe this is a good video to show in a staff training session too.

5. Perhaps the overriding message, and one which makes this suitable for starting a discussion with parents, is that FaceBook isn't the problem here, it's the way it's been used. The same would apply to any other tool: even a screwdriver can be either a handy instrument or a lethal weapon.

© Terry Freedman Tue, 24 Jul 2007